In India, organized retail is a fairly new phenomenon and it coexists with the traditional corner-shop or kirana store as it’s called here. Despite fears of the former destroying small mom and pop shops, the two have happily coexisted for a couple of decades now. That’s also because the Indian government didn’t allow large foreign supermarket chains to enter the retail market; they were allowed to operate only in a limited fashion in the wholesale or cash-and carry market as it’s called. Strict rules operate in the e-commerce industry as well, though greater liberalization might be afoot after seeing that e-commerce in India hasn’t destroyed the small retailer. And not least because large Indian conglomerates such as Reliance have big plans for e-commerce and deep pockets to match as well.
That said, the department store concept hasn’t quite caught on in India yet, despite a few brands such as Shopper’s Stop being around for decades. And apparel and groceries are worlds apart, of course, as the entry of some foreign fashion brands such as Zara, H&M as well as Benetton in recent years has shown us. In apparel and fashion alone, we have had several Indian brands and companies offering customers in India a wide range of styles to suit different tastes and budgets. Some of them include large companies such as Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, Raymonds, Arvind Fashion, ITC and others. We have also had our own Indian brands of jewellery and watches for decades, Tanishq and Titan. And since most Indian women still prefer to dress in Indian attire, we have Fab India, Anokhi, Nalli Silks and now Taneira from Titan.
The strange aspect of Indian fashion brands is that they don’t think of themselves as fashion brands, but as retailers, as I even mentioned in my strategy document for Tanishq shared on my blog. The focus is on numbers of stores, cities and locations. Not on fashion, design and brands. I wonder why this confusion between fashion and retail.
In this piece, I would like to address this subject in a little more detail. I have worked on a retail brand before in India in the advertising industry, though never on a fashion brand although I think I would be reasonably good at it. To my mind, fashion and retail are separate, and yet in many instances, could be linked. Every fashion or apparel brand has to have a retail dimension to their business, but not every retailer or department store is a fashion brand. And I would imagine that even for companies in the fashion and apparel business, keeping the retail side of the business separate as a function would be critical.
I think that fashion is a business that is about the making of fine garments, design, and styles that change with every season and every few years. At its core, it is about design and brand imagery, and how it makes the wearer feel about himself or herself, and also how others see the person. Retail on the other hand, even in the fashion and apparel business is about the shopping experience in-store or online. It is more about the way merchandise is displayed and stocked, how well-trained the shop assistants are, and how consistently good the service is, including trials and alterations.
I would like to write about two brands that I recently discovered were perhaps getting fashion and retail mixed up. And I thought it might be worth my while to give both of them some more thought and share my thoughts and ideas here. One of them is Liberty London an upscale retailer in London, where I have shopped years ago on one of my many visits from India, and for whom I have already created a brand strategy and campaign ideas and shared them on my blog three years ago.
I visit Liberty London’s website at this time of the year to see if they are doing anything special for Christmas and the holidays. I find it strange that they don’t advertise at all, not even during Christmas when it’s the biggest shopping season for retailers in the UK. Can’t see why, when the kind of merchandise retailed at Liberty London make for lovely gifts.
I happened to see that Liberty London has decided to foray into perfumes, with a strangely branded LBTY range of perfumes inspired by their textile prints. In my brand strategy document and ideas shared earlier on my blog, I did say that Liberty London’s core product is textile prints, and that this can be extended into a few other products such as scarves, dresses and cloth-bound notebooks, planners, etc that would help establish Liberty’s core product and expertise a little more clearly.
However, I think it’s way too soon for Liberty London to be launching fragrances. Liberty London is a retailer selling a wide variety of exotic merchandise from around the world, in addition to their textiles, and if they wish to launch their own house brand or private label, as they are called, they ought to have a clear strategy and path for it. I don’t think Liberty abbreviated as LBTY cuts it, irrespective of product category. I have put down some additional and new thoughts on Liberty London, and how they could consider launching their own brand as a retailer, which you can read by clicking the link below.
The other brand is a well-known and highly regarded designer fashion brand from India, Ritu Kumar. I had mentioned her in a blog post of mine on Indian brands being built through cultural heritage and going global. When I visited Ritu Kumar’s website recently, I discovered that her company has four brands, but none of them were really the Ritu Kumar we know from her designs, nor were they differentiated enough to be brands.
Do we have a case of a high fashion designer brand trying to scale up, and in the process, going retail here? By this I mean that in trying to appeal to everyone, is she losing her designer edge?
The way I see it, Ritu Kumar is the brand, not the four brands or sub-brands she is mistakenly trying to create. I also think that the confusion has arisen because there doesn’t seem to be a clear differentiating strategy for the Ritu Kumar brand. Therefore, I thought I’d put down my thoughts on what her brand strategy ought to be and what her designs need to focus on. Furthermore, I also share my thoughts on how she can approach various important customer segments. You may read my thoughts and ideas on Ritu Kumar by clicking the link below.
I think all other Indian fashion and apparel brands too need to think harder and sharper on this aspect. Of how to make their brands more fashion-led and how the retail dimension ought to help the brand along in complementing the same strategy. I don’t know of any Indian fashion and apparel brands that have a creative director or a lead fashion designer who guides and leads the design process, setting new trends for each year and even guiding the retail showroom design and display.
Retail or fashion, it’s important to know which business your company is in. And even if you’re diversifying, your brand needs to follow a clear strategy that allows a natural progression.
Finally, brand communication is critical. As I say in both my documents for Liberty London and Ritu Kumar, investing in brand communication is key to building brands in customers’ hearts and minds.
Post Script: I must add that I was prompted to put my mind to additional thoughts on Liberty London, and new thoughts on Ritu Kumar because I realised that both were mischief by unprofessional PR agency idiot bosses at Perfect Relations, Delhi. They had gone and meddled with Liberty London way back when I started putting down my thoughts on the brand, years before I even executed the ideas and shared them on my blog. This nonsense with LBTY fragrance is entirely their doing, I am sure.
On Ritu Kumar, since I mentioned her as an international fashion designer brand from India in a blog post to which I have shared the link in the article above, the same unprofessional PR agency bosses have gone and meddled with her brand as well, advising her with mischievously motivated nonsense. I had shared a post on LinkedIn at the time I discovered this.
It is to set the record straight and to clarify my position on the strategies for both these brands that I have shared my thoughts on both in the above article. I wish the unprofessional bosses would learn to leave me alone, but even four years after writing a stern email to the heads of Perfect Relations and RK Swamy/BBDO as my former employers, they don’t seem to get it. Rather they are determined to hijack my career, work and life after taking a wrecking ball to it. I also wish they would leave advertising and brands alone, since they know and understand precious little about them.
Peripatetic Perch 